Top 5 Best CRMs for Small Businesses in 2021 

With the technological advancements, every company has realized the importance and the benefits of scaling their business with the help of the technological developments and features offered by the various brands. CRM, which is also known as Customer Relationship Management, is a tool that is used by various giant companies and corporations for managing their customers and to scale their business. Be it a small or a large-scale business, every company wishes to make a profit and expand its business operations. CRM is a perfect tool even for small businesses to run their business smoothly and take advantage of the software system. 

What is CRM? 

CRM is a software that covers three different aspects that is marketing, sustaining sales, and customer service activities. CRM or more commonly known as Customer Relationship Management assists organizations while they are engaged in interaction with clients and potential clients. This software provides various tools that helps a company understand the demand and the likings of their clients in a better way and hence shape their policies, campaigns, and lookout as per the data gathered by the tools. CRM software is utilized more by all the sales and marketing departments of a company.  

Top 5 Best CRMs for Small Businesses  

There are various aspects that every small business owner must consider before opting for any CRM software. The CRM software chosen should be easy to use, must not include any type of hassle, and should also be budget-friendly for the small businesses. The top 5 CRM software that is beneficial for small businesses are mentioned as follows. 

1.Zoho CRM

Established in the year 1996, Zoho Corporation is a software development company that provides a wide range of software products that are easy to use, hassle-free, and especially designed for small as well as large-scale businesses, depending on the organization.  

Pros 

• One of the useful features of Zoho Campaigns is having the dynamic content feature and automated list segmentation; it helps users to send personalized messages with different templates and specifications that appeal to their clients

• They offer a monthly newsletter with pre-configured template, which is sent using Zoho Campaign and that has all the dates and details of upcoming events. This helps businesses to plan their offers and strategies and keep their customers glued.

Cons  

• Even after various changes from the company, there are many users who feel that the platform is not user-friendly and requires a little brainstorming. 

• The support system of Zoho is a little slow as compared to the other CRM software and hence that counts as a drawback. 

Conclusion 

To surmise, Zoho CRM offers a budget-friendly plan that offers almost 40 % of its business apps to the user for 105$/ month, and hence it is the best option for small businesses.  

2.Freshworks CRM

As we already know that there are different types of CRM software that are focused on various aspects of a business. Freshworks is a CRM software that is entirely focused on the sales aspect of a business. Everything that is required by a sales team is provided by Freshworks CRM. 

Pros  

• As the software is focused solely on sales, Freshworks CRM offers various different tools that speed up the sales process and are quite favourable for small businesses.

• As compared to other CRM’s, you don’t require any special training to understand the working of Freshworks 

Cons 

• The third-party integrations that should be provided by CRM software are not as many as compared to its competitors. 

• Although it is not related to small businesses, but the email limit per user is just 500, which makes it difficult. 

Conclusion 
 

Although there are certain features that requires improvement, Freshworks CRM can definitely be a good choice for small businesses. Their plans start as low as 15$. 

3.HubSpot 

Establishing its operations in the year 2006, HubSpot was the first company to offer email marketing automation as a platform and since then the tool has been used by more than 50,000 companies, however, most of them is utilized by small businesses and even E-Commerce business. 

Pros 

• HubSpot provides a way to integrate all online marketing efforts to ensure that all campaigns have a strategic and integrated focus. This allows companies to have a truly closed loop marketing strategy.

• HubSpot CRM has a huge list of templates and tools to offer for that make your campaign attractive and generate more leads for your business. 

Cons 

• The prices charged by the tool can be expensive for small business owners and hence it is a major disadvantage of using HubSpot

• HubSpot has grown the number of tools it offers so keeping pace with these can take some effort for small businesses to get used to them. 

Conclusion 

Apart from the pricing structure for small business owners, HubSpot is a really good option to scale your business. 

4.Salesforce CRM

Salesforce CRM is considered to be the biggest CRM company that has almost captured 20 % of the market. One of the major reasons for adding this CRM software to the list is because its primary focus since its establishment has always been small businesses. 

Pros 

• One of the primary advantages of using Salesforce CRM is that they provide many third-party integrations as compared to other CRM software.

• Reports within Salesforce have the ability to be simple as a standard Account report, or you can get very granular with your report filtering to segment a very specific result.

Cons 

• The interface of the software is very complex for some users, especially the small businesses. As their focus is now large enterprises, the structure of the software has been complex. 

• Continuing the above point, it becomes very difficult to find the right tools that you require for your business, and hence it can be a hassle.

Conclusion 

Once you get used to the interface of Salesforce, it can be a good tool for your small business with their plans starting as low as 25$.  

5.Pipedrive CRM

Categorized under the type of Operational CRM software, Pipedrive CRM is focused on the sales aspect of a company and is primarily targeted to the small business owners. They offer various sales automation tools that assists the sales team of a company to pursue more leads.  

Pros 

•  It helps ensure leads don’t get stale. It will highlight leads that need follow up based on specific criteria that the user has input. This is a very helpful feature for small businesses.

• They have a very user-friendly platform that makes it easier for small business owners to create a template and carry out all the automation tools.

Cons 

• As easy as it is to use the tools, it would be better if Pipedrive provided better reporting tools as compared to other software. 

• The support system that is provided by them can be improved.

Conclusion 

Pipedrive CRM is a growing software but the features provided by the software are very handy for small businesses. 

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